Category Archives: Photoshop

This is a post about organizing regional gatherings for weavers, specifically, members of Complex Weavers.

It must have been sometime in August when I learned that Bhakti Ziek would be coming to the San Francisco area in January. I started a conversation with Bhakti immediately about subject matter, target audience, etc. We decided on a two pronged approach, one for experienced Photoshop users and one for those who are curious about the process. I then needed to alert and lure as many as possible to take these workshops to cover the cost of the venue, the teacher and travel. I provided housing for Bhakti, one of the best advantages of organizing! I had the membership list from CW, access to the Yahoo list for Northern CA, the CW website and newsletter, and our guild newsletter.

Finding a venue in this area is not for the faint of heart, especially at the prices we want to pay, but I did find one, 5 minutes from home for the 2 day advanced class. That venue needed to be close to a hotel, restaurants, transportation. The one day event took place at our regular guild venue in San Francisco, no special requirements. All that is left to do is set the price based on a simple budget, and then follow up with details..

The reward? A great class, learned a lot, brought a wonderful group together who mentioned the possibility of the “first annual…”.

?

The one day group was in fact two groups, AM a larger number who were introduced to Bhakti’s work, the PM group, a subset of people who wanted to see how Photoshop works for weavers. They were too busy to get a photo!

Many years ago, (20?) I bought some potholders from Gretchen Muller. I have had no contact with her since that purchase.

Grody! Of course! I have used this for all those years, happily.

Then, for some reason never to be remembered, as I surfed the web, I found these:

Really? Can’t be just happenstance. And in fact, Gretchen taught Erica Pfister how to weave these. http://pfisterrugs.com/ and she has them for sale. Go buy!

I was enchanted, I want to weave them myself. So I emailed Erica. She has graciously given me some hints and i have done a little research. The patterns came from Mary Meigs Atwater, Byway in Handweaving, and I have found them also in Le Tissage aux Cardons. The translation is available here from Barbara Shapiro, an incredible San Francisco artist.

So the problem is how to move them from a four hole card weaving draft to a shaft loom draft. There are hints. Erica gave me a few, as did an article in Handwoven. Nov/Dec 1999 First Dinner Party, Cardweaving Patterns for Placemats by Triinu Kartus.

You can see that color is the key. Another use for Photoshop! Who knew? So I have designed, or rather emulated a design, from the masters and came up with this.

Now I have to translate this diagram to a weaving draft, figure the sett, very very close, and see if the loom will lift the shafts. Now, did these wonderful weavers worry about the direction of the threading, 1-2-3-4 vs 4-3-2-1 or not? and the warping will be a royal annoyance with all the color changes. Hmmm.